Echoes of Silence
by Manchester
Summary: One evening in Sunnydale, it's a very special anniversary for a certain undead former poet who reveals a surprising secret.


"So, the Watcher stories are really true," Rupert Giles marveled. "This is the one night of the year when William the Bloody won't kill."

Aiming a warning finger towards that human across the apartment living room table they were currently sharing this evening, Spike next personally threatened Giles, "Don't get any daft ideas, you wanker. Doesn't mean I've gone soft or anything, see? If you're thinking about how easily your little chit of a Slayer might dust me tonight, think again. I've scuppered enough blokes — demons, happy meals, whatever — who heard the same rumors and tracked me down on this date, expecting me to just roll over and pop my clogs. Guess what? _I'm_ still here, and they aren't."

"Yes, well, about that…" Giles trailed off, giving a rather significant glance around at his small living room. Only an hour ago, if anyone had even suggested to him that this former British Museum associate would willingly invite one of the most ferocious vampires in recent history through the front door, Giles would've immediately considered that person to be utterly bonkers.

Spike shrugged, tapping a cigarette free from his pack brought out from a jacket pocket. He put the pack down onto the tabletop and lit his cigarette with a match also taken from the pocket. A blonde eyebrow quizzically lifted at seeing the Watcher then snaffle his own fag from the pack and hold it, waiting.

Rolling his eyes, Spike pulled harder on his fag until the ember at its end was glowing. He removed the cigarette from his mouth and extended it across the table to where Giles leaned forward with that man's own cigarette also ready between his lips. The tips of the cigarettes touched, with Giles also steadily inhaling until his fag was sufficiently ignited.

Leaning back in their chairs, two Londoners blew out in unison a cloud of smoke and then removed their cigarettes together, keeping these ready in their fingers for another puff when necessary.

Studying Giles with new interest, Spike commented, "Didn't know you indulged, Watcher. You don't usually smell of tobacco."

Just as his guest had done moments before, Giles shrugged, answering, "It's been quite a while, but I thought under the circumstances, one more Silk Cut wouldn't hurt. After all, it's not like there isn't something considerably more dangerous in this place now than mere trifles such as nicotine, hydrogen cyanide, and formaldehyde."

Blowing out through his nose the result of another long drag from his fag, Spike smirked at Giles. "Comparing me to cancer, eh? You say the nicest things, Watcher."

" _You_ said over the phone earlier what I'd never thought a vampire could avow, the Truce of Maat," countered Giles in a tone of genuine wonder. "Where on earth did you learn about that Egyptian spell of sincere armistice between adversaries? I don't think it's been invoked for centuries!"

Spike gravely nodded before responding, "Ach, I've picked up a few useful things during my assorted travels. Glad it convinced you to let me in tonight."

A very cool look was sent Spike's way past Giles' own smoke cloud.

"The sheer fact alone that you arrived intact and not in a small heap of ashes upon my threshold indicated you _meant_ every word of your peaceable intentions towards myself for the next twenty-four hours, I must admit. However, if it actually needs to be mentioned, I also plan to instantly renew the protective wards on this dwelling right after you leave."

Spike happily smiled at a much more wary Watcher. "Fine then, let's get on with it, the whole reason I'm here. You got any booze in this slagheap?"

Giles eyed Spike even more skeptically due to that last incongruous sentence.

"Of course, but would you mind awfully explaining first just _why_ you want to spend Remembrance Day with me in particular?"

Spike at once stilled in his chair, remaining there as immobile as the corpse as he really was. Eventually, this vampire responded to Giles though not exactly as this Watcher had expected.

"Any of your lot in the war?"

Rupert Giles knew straightaway what that question asked. For generations now, even after Great Britain's implacable conflict with Hitler and his ilk two decades later, there was still only one single period of hostilities during the twentieth century forever dubbed by that country as _the_ war.

"My grandfather," Giles shortly replied. "He was a lieutenant with the Royal Fusiliers, 4th Battalion, until he took a bullet to the knee at Mons. That got him transferred to the staff until the war ended, ensuring his survival. Two of his cousins weren't so lucky. I can remember him limping around our garden when I was a little boy."

Giles stared with growing bafflement at Spike gazing blankly off into the distance of the living room. "What's that got to do with _you?_ You were turned well before 1914, weren't you?"

"Aye," Spike absently replied. With a quick shake of his shoulders, Spike brought his attention back to his host. "Me and Dru, we were in London throughout it all. Damned good hunting then the first year, people coming from all over the world, not knowing anybody and nobody missing them. But…"

The Watcher kept his own affronted reticence when Spike trailed off in his appalling story. That perhaps encouraged Spike to continue.

"…we soon started feeling the guns. In southeast England behind the Channel, ordinary humans could hear artillery going off in France and Belgium, though the sound never went as far as London, even for us. No, what we got through the ground was a day and night quivering, and for three bloody years, _it never stopped._ "

Spike was back to staring unseeingly at the apartment's far wall. "The worse of it for me was the Battle of the Somme. For a whole week, almost two million shells were fired on the Jerries, and it near drove me mad. Making matters even worse, Dru didn't turn a hair the whole while, and I wasn't going to act a soddin' funker in front of her!"

Taking an unnecessary deep breath, Spike then told a fascinated Giles, "Then, one day…there was nothing at all. Woke me right up, and I couldn't believe it. Not the least bit of wobble underfoot. Outside the cellar we were staying, crowds were cheering and crying and shouting the war was over and done with. I had to wait for nightfall to buy the London papers, and I was so busy reading them that I never even thought of eating one of those overjoyed blokes. Got back to it right and proper the next night, of course. Since then, though…every November 11, I live and let live just for once, if you can believe that about me," finished Spike defiantly eyeing Giles appearing rather gobsmacked in his chair.

Rather than saying the first thing on his mind, this Watcher instead arose to his feet and went over to the cabinet set against a living room wall. Opening a drawer, Giles removed from there a brown bottle and two crystal tumblers.

Perking up at easily identifying with his vampiric vision even across the room as, "Bugger me, the Macallan 18! You've got good taste, Watcher!" approved Spike

A faint smile touching his features, Giles brought over to the table his bottle and the pair of glasses, setting the latter down onto there. After extricating the cork and pouring a proper measure of liquid Scots treasure into the tumblers atop the table, Giles carefully laid the bottle by the glasses, picking up one of these.

Also getting to his feet, William the Bloody took hold of the other glass, facing Rupert Giles. They clinked their glasses together simultaneously, while Giles intoned, "To remembrance."

"To remembrance," repeated Spike, with the English natives next finishing their solemn toast to the over seven hundred thousand of their fellow countrymen who perished as soldiers, sailors, and civilians from July 28, 1914 to November 11, 1918.


End file.
